is there any truth to the rumor that said judge attended Stanford? If so, how did he not requse himself?
This very perception of the “revolving door justice system” among many New Yorkers during the high crime era was still prevalent during my childhood. There was a lot of anger in the local newsmedia about “soft judges” who’d sentence violent felons to extremely short sentences and generous bail terms considering the nature of the crimes committed.
And the movies like Death Wish directly referenced that perception which accounted for that series’ popularity back in the day.
To repeat, the judge has much closer ties to the prosecurion than the defense. The judge spent most of his career before going on the bench as a sex crimes prosecutor in the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office – the very people prosecuting the case.
And Stanford is NOT a defendant in the case. Stanford hates the defendant. That a star athlete at Stanford committed this crime is a black mark on Stanford.
Looking at all of these factors BEFORE the case was decided, no one would ever say, “Oh, this judge should be recused because he’s likely to favor the defense.”
@nottelling, The judge absolutely represents us. Not politically. You keep talking politically. The judge should carry out sentencing according to guidelines except in extreme circumstances and this case doesn’t have extreme circumstances. I read the police report and frankly its chilling. We are talking about the defendent being found guilty on 3 felony counts. This was a very violent crime. The judge failed.
A number of pages back, I mentioned that I’d thought I’d seen a study indicating that a majority of college rapes are committed by a relatively small number of repeat offenders. Within the article linked in post 871, I found a link to an article describing that study:
Please listen carefully to what notteling is saying. He is speaking very frankly about how the system works. I think I’ve said before that at least in Michigan the guidelines include jail + probation…I cannot speak to California law. Jail + probation for this person is 3 years and 6 months…within the guidelines if that is how California operates. You can disagree with the sentence the judge pronounced but if he did not violate the laws that govern his sentencing what does the general public think they are going to be able do with the judge? Perhaps they need to put all this energy into really understand the codes that govern their state and focus their energy on reform (if they decide the state legal codes need it.) I get that the nuances are great. I wish I could talk about a case one of my friends was involved with. The public is a lynch mob, but there are very real legal evidentiary and procedural things that are NOT going to get our local community what they “want.” I would hate to be that judge after all this media exposure. Hopefully they’ll drop the prelim and the trial will be distant…
Interesting theory on why the sentence imposed was so short:
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/The-other-reason-for-Brock-Turner-s-short-7974315.php
Thanks @momofthreeboys. I am a “she” by the way. (You referred to me as a “he.”) 
I do think gender is relevant, which is why I am correcting that.
@momofthreeboys, I didn’t say the judge violated the laws. I said what the judge did is legal.
You are right. You can’t speak to California law.
The Stanford law professor leading the recall movement wanted to see a sentence of at least 2 years.
The recall movement is legal too.
@notteling, as information is coming out slowly and imperfectly, it is hard to know who knew what when.
Did the judge see Brock’s messages of drug use and drinking before he sentenced Brock?
@dstark, in a criminal trial, it is the District Attorney who represents the People of the State of California. The judge does not represent us. The judge is supposed to be neutral.
If the judge did not see the evidence of the drug use etc before sentencing Brock, it is the fault of the DA’s office, not the judge. The DA’s office does the investigation and decides what evidence to present. The judge decides the case based in the evidence presented; he or she is not permitted to do an independent investigation. That’s the role of the DA. And besides we dont know whether that statement had any impact whatsoever on the judge since we haven’t seem the probation report and the judge just followed the recommendation in the probation report.
I know the DA represents us.
I didn’t say anything about a judge doing an independent investigation. Where does this stuff come from?
I want to know if the judge knew Brock’s messages before he sentenced Brock? I didn’t ask if the judge searched for the messages.
I have a relative who is much, much smaller and younger looking than Turner. He was arrested for something bad, but not nearly as bad as what Turner did, and the sentencing judge straight out said that he sentenced around that possibility in the hope that the kid could be reformed. Unfortunately, a couple of years later he relapsed on drugs, committed another crime (not as bad as Turner’s) and went to jail. He came out a broken, destroyed mockery of a human being. No one should ever wish that on anyone or find it fodder for jokes, and frankly, every middle class boy who feels entitled or above should think very hard about coming up against a judge who will sentence him to prison.
@notelling… oh my goodness, I wonder why I thought that. It’s funny how we form preconceptions in the absence of any visual clues (you don’t have an avatar). Maybe judges should never SEE the criminals…wonder what would happen My sincere apologies!
The judge knew Brock lied.
I think that is really really bad.
As I’ve said before, I think this jail term was too short. But Turner didn’t get jail+probation…he got jail+probation+lifetime sex offender status. The latter is a gigantic consequence that will prevent him from ever having a normal life. When we’re talking about the severity of the sentence, it’s critical to remember that aspect. Don’t imagine that he’ll be out of jail and on his merry way. Frankly, if Turner were my son or my client, I’d be WAY more concerned about the sex offender registry than I would be about 3 vs. 6 vs. 12 months in jail.
Me, too. Plus probation (at his age) is no fun. I’m sure it will include no alcohol etc. which is tough for most 20 -30 year old males whose social lives tend to revolve around situations with alcohol. All of this will change his life forever so to me it’s not as important what part is jail, what part is probation…not with a lifetime on the sex registry.
@Hanna as others have also said before that the lifetime registry isn’t necessarily lifetime. Not for people that can afford the lawyers to have their names removed from it.
His parents are going to be in so much hock after all this, it probably won’t be them.
@rosered55 :
Thanks for putting up that link, it is good to hear from someone who has seen the kind of thing we are talking about here as a prosecutor. I agree with her, I think the judge, despite the fact that he worked as a sex crimes prosecutor, shared the atitude that the author was talking about, that many, including judges, see rape as something perpetrated by someone at knife point, and if something like this is done by a privileged, upper class white kid at an elite institution, well, that isn’t rape, it is a mistake (and if you read the judge’s decision, when he spends all that time talking about the boy losing his swimming scholarship as ‘proof’ he was punished, only if you think he committed something relatively minor. )
@nottelling: thank you, that was my impression, too, that judges get reversed on those things only if they violate the law.One argument that potentially they could use, least I would as a non lawyer, was arguing he never should have taken the case. His feelings might be more in line with the prosecution, but the fact that the judge went to Stanford himself, was an athlete there (team captain), should have caused someone to think about excusing him from the case. Apparently, the judge is very active as an alumni and is very proud of having gone there, and being an athlete himself and knowing what goes on with that, it is very, very hard to believe that the kid being an athlete at Stanford had no bearing on his decision, it would be like having a judge decide the rape case of a star football player at the same school he want to (oh, I don’t know, let’s say University of Florida) or a police chief heading the investigation of same who happens to be the chief of Tallahasee florida) and not assuming bias.
Was this racially motivated? I don’t think the judge is a racist, my argument would me more about class and class privilege. You have a kid from a ‘good home’ ie upper income, was an athlete, at an elite school (that the judge himself attended and was an athlete at, even if it was a club sport). If you look at his decision,his bias is pretty evident, the words tell me that. His statement about how the kid suffered by losing his swimming scholarship shows that he puts a big deal on that, more importantly, that it was Stanford, and in his decision most of what I read was about the boy, he almost totally ignored the victim IMO. When he said he didn’t think this boy was a threat to anyone, what did he base that on? Did he actually listen to the testimony, did he, supposedly a prosecutor who had worked with sex crimes, bother to think that someone who could do something like this, of this scale, is a threat? It looks to me like the judge saw this was an upper class kid from an elite school, who obviously “came from a good family” or the like, totally ignored what the kid did…did he read the medical report about how beat up the girl was? This wasn’t some kid who had sex with a girl and went over a line, he raped a comatose girl, and evidence seems to be that if he could do something vile like this, he likely had done it before, and also if statistics are correct, do it again. He assumed basically that because this boy gave him a sob story about being a sheltered kid from a good home in the midwest and never been exposed to bad, bad alcohol and/or drugs, that he wasn’t responsible, and the schmuck bought it, hook line and sinker.
No, it isn’t racism really, if a black kid from projects in Palo Alto (assuming they exist…) came in front of him, he wouldn’t give him a stiffer sentence because he was black, he would give it to him because the kid wasn’t ‘from a good family’, wasn’t an athlete at an elite college, and therefore if he committed this crime, it was a crime, not the one mistake from ‘a good kid’, which is what I got out of his verdict…The black kid from the projects with no criminal record would not get the max, but I bet he would get several years. I too would love to see the judge’s record on sentences with sex offenders and chart who the defendent was and for similar crimes, what they got…and I would bet it wouldn’t be the 3 month travesty this kid will face. His attitude does show, if he really felt like losing an atheltic scholarship to Stanford was the worst punishment the kid already faced, it shows a very upper class, elitist bias, given the harsh realities of how bad the world treats people.
Should the judge lose his job? I don’t think so, as much as I would wish he did. I agree judges are supposed to be above politics and make decisions based on the law and their understanding of it, that is our system, and I wouldn’t support a recall on him, I don’t think there are grounds. Unless someone can prove that his decision violated california law (which it doesn’t look like), or they have a smoking gun, an e-mail where the judge wrote something like “Turner was a Stanford man and therefore could not be a rapist” or something stupid like that, there would be no proof to throw him off the bench. If the people in Santa Clara want to try and get someone to run as a write in to replace him, that is their right, in California judges are elected (which is ridiculous), so legally they can try and force him out that way. Unless the prosecution can make a case that his verdict was based on bias, and make it stick, there is no basis to remove him, as sad as that may be. I just hope the dimwit wakes up and realizes that it could be his daughter (or son) that ends up like the girl did, or starts remembering that being an upper class, blond haired, blue eyes athlete who got into Stanford doesn’t mean the kid is incapable of being a monster, my suspicion is he did just that in sentencing.
@GnocchiB - yes, that makes sense that the probation department – which is part of the department of corrections, which runs the prisons – would be concerned with whether there were adequate resources available for the prison to adequately protect the inmate, which under the 8th Amendment the prison is required to do.